by Carla Arton, Director of Technical Operations for Film, Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative, Indiana University In 2015, Indiana University launched the Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative (MDPI) aimed at digitally preserving and making accessible 280,000 audio and video items held across the Bloomington and regional campuses. In 2017, IU announced and launched the second phase, the… Read more »
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The Comfort in Hearing Home
by Barbara Truesdell, Assistant Director, Center for the Study of History and Memory, Indiana University On October 16, 2017, the Indiana Daily Student published an article in the student life section entitled, “Hearing Home” written by Lydia Gerike. The article described how freshman Elizabeth Ketzner had the opportunity to hear the voice of her grandfather,… Read more »
The Island of Misfit Tapes
by Jonathan Richardson, Audio Visual Specialist, Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative and Rob Mobley, Video Preservation Engineer, Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative Here at MDPI we deal with our fair share of decaying media. One of the most problematic video tape formats is U-matic, also referred to as ¾”. Any video preservation engineer who has been in the business long… Read more »
Where Do You Belong? Challenges in Sorting Open Reel Audio Tapes (Part Two)
by Sam Springman, Unit Manager, Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative, Indiana University Until May 2016, MDPI sorted open reel audio tapes into groups for digitization based almost entirely on a straightforward physical inspection: looking at the tapes themselves, reading the technical information written or printed on their boxes, and so forth. That approach worked well… Read more »
Where the Wild Things Are: Audio Oddities at IU – Part 1: Tapes
by Dan Figurelli, Audio Preservation Engineer, Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative, Indiana University; Melissa Widzinski, Audio Preservation Engineer, Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative, Indiana University; and Jonathan Richardson, Audio Visual Specialist, Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative, Indiana University Edited by Adam Nickel, Processing and Quality Control Specialist, Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative, Indiana University The content of this post… Read more »
No Better Than This: Talking to 2010 from the 1950s
by Jim Shanahan, Dean of the Media School, Indiana University and Paul Mahern, Record Producer, Mixing and Mastering Engineer edited by Mike Casey, Director of Technical Operations, Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative, Indiana University The archival recordings digitally preserved by the MDPI project have many potential uses. In this post, we highlight their ability to inform… Read more »
The Afro-American in Indiana
By Brenda Nelson-Strauss, Head of Collections, Archives of African American Music and Culture, Indiana University Black-oriented radio has long been one of the most popular topics of research at IU’s Archives of African American Music and Culture, but within the AAAMC’s black radio collections there were only a few brief mentions of activity within the… Read more »
Where Do You Belong? Challenges in Sorting Open Reel Audio Tapes (Part One)
by Patrick Feaster, Media Preservation Specialist, Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative, Indiana University In a previous post, I introduced the Strategic Media Access Resource Team, or “SMARTeam” for short: the intrepid crew responsible for getting audio and video media ready for MDPI to reformat. The preparation work they do involves a number of tasks—each item… Read more »
Using the Endpoint Audio Labs Cylinder Playback Machine
by Dan Figurelli and Melissa Widzinski, Audio Preservation Engineers, Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative, Indiana University In 1892 or 1893, Army surgeon and amateur anthropologist Washington Matthews recorded his first cylinders while working with the Navajo people in New Mexico. Matthews was already well-established as a researcher of native American traditions when he was deliberately… Read more »
Obsolescence in Action: How Fast Can You Solder 2,400 capacitors on 12 VHS Machines?
by Mike Casey, Director of Technical Operations, Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative, Indiana University Welcome to the first installment in our occasional series, “Obsolescence in Action.” In the early days of MDPI, I came across a university in Ohio that was looking to dispose of twelve Panasonic AG-DS840 VHS machines. High-end VHS machines, free for… Read more »